The fading dream tob-3

by Keith Baker

  Thorn sighed. “Some days I’d like to drown all dwarves on general principle.” The dwarves of House Kundarak bore the Mark of Warding, and she’d had to face their tricks and traps far too often.

  “What’s wrong?” It was Drix’s voice, drifting from the hole in the board.

  “Can you hear me?” Thorn said. “We’ve got a locked gate. I’m not sure we can get out.”

  “For a shaft that size… a gate would need to have levitation charms. Something that would trigger when it was activated, to shift the weight.”

  Yes, Steel said. To your left, there’s a circle carved into the stone. There’s a concentration of energies there.

  “What about it?” Thorn said.

  “Get over there. Hold me up next to it.”

  “That’s me,” Thorn muttered. “Defeating all challenges with dagger and board.” Sheathing Steel, she made her way over to the carved disk. Holding the board in both hands, she positioned the hole by the circle. “Can you see it?”

  “Yes, just hold it there.”

  It was a strange experience. Thorn could feel Drix shifting around. It wasn’t the same as the motion of a body, but it was motion nonetheless. And she could feel the pressure of each moment, knowing that the spider charm would soon fade.

  “Drix, I don’t want to rush you-”

  “There!” he cried.

  Thorn felt the rumble through the wall of the tunnel. The gate shifted up and out, moonlight breaking through as a crack formed between the two halves. Thorn darted up and through as soon as there was room, collapsing onto the soft earth and grass outside.

  “Arawai be praised,” she murmured. “I’ve never been so happy to see a tree.”

  She was in a field with moons above and a starry sky overhead. A few trees were scattered around, and she could hear the distant song of night birds. After the gloom of the Mournland and the stone of the pit, the color was a blessing.

  “Thorn?” Drix’s voice was muffled. “You need to turn me over.”

  “Oh.” When she’d dropped the board, she’d set the hole against the ground. She lifted it up and flipped it over, and as she did so, she caught sight of the beast that was watching them both, licking the blood from its claws.

  “Hello, little one,” it said. “I have come to settle our debt.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Lhazaar Principalities B arrakas 25, 999 YK

  The face staring down at Thorn looked oddly like the face of King Boranel. But where the king had a regal mane of gray hair, the creature standing over Thorn simply had a regal mane. And Boranel didn’t have a double row of bloodstained teeth. It seemed the manticore had fed recently… fortunate for her, she hoped.

  Crimson wings sprouted from the muscular body of an enormous lion. The tail of a scorpion rose up over his head, a drop of venom gleaming on its barbed tip. His tawny paws were still soaked in blood.

  “You’re a long way from home,” Thorn said. She’d met the beast before, in the back streets of the Calabas.

  “I could say the same of you,” the manticore said, shaking the blood from its mane.

  A pair of hands emerged from the hole in the board, and Drix pushed himself up through the opening. He caught sight of the manticore, paused for a moment, and dropped back down and out of sight.

  “You’ll have to pardon my companion,” Thorn said. “So… just passing through?”

  “Perhaps I came on behalf of the Daughters of Sora Kell, in search of a few wayward trolls.”

  Thorn shrugged. “That would be a good reason, though a long way to come for it.”

  “Too long,” the manticore replied. “Perhaps I just wished to see an old friend, to see if she was ready to repay her debt to me.”

  “And are we friends?” Thorn asked.

  “Friendlier than most,” it told her with a gruesome grin. “You remember that night we shared in Gray-wall, yes? The night you clung to my back as I soared through the air, carrying you from the scene of your sordid crime?”

  “It’s not the sort of thing you forget,” Thorn said. Next to her, she could see Drix peering up out of his portable hole.

  “You’d think not,” the beast replied. “And yet you’ve forgotten so many things, haven’t you?”

  In that moment, that night in the Calabas came back to her, and she remembered the strange things the manticore had said to her. Are we strangers? it had asked her. And Have you no fear of my venom? My spite has laid dragons low.

  “Sarmondelaryx,” she breathed. “You weren’t looking for me at all.”

  “I told you,” the manticore rumbled. “I just wished to see an old friend.”

  “I’m not Sarmondelaryx,” she said. “I’m Nyrielle Tam. I’m Thorn.”

  “So you say,” the beast said, showing its bloody smile. “I can follow a scent across the length of the world, and I know dragon well. I heard the cry of triumph when you devoured Drulkalatar Atesh. Have you remembered the story I want to hear?”

  “Try me.”

  “No.” The manticore shook its massive head. “If you remembered, I would not have to ask. It is not our time yet. But we are close, yes. I smell the future on the wind, little one. And I will have my story soon enough.”

  “I wish I could sit around and wait with you,” Thorn said. “Unfortunately I’ve got other things to do here.”

  The beast raised its head, drawing a deep breath through its nose. “Yes. You’ve come searching for the fortress that lies in the woods.”

  “As a matter of fact-”

  “The woods are haunted,” it told her. “Filled with the dreams of those who came too close to the hidden citadel. Their bodies were burned, leaving only a last spark of hope, now turned ugly and sour, the one hope remaining to steal the life of another who might pass through.”

  “Lovely,” Thorn said.

  “In its way,” it said, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “I had a friend once who loved these woods. She’d come here from time to time, hunting these ghosts and swallowing them whole, savoring that last fading hope.”

  “I’ve never had much of a taste for dashed hopes myself,” Thorn said. “We’ll manage somehow, I’m sure.”

  “If only you had wings, you could cross the haunted wood on the night winds and glide over the walls themselves.”

  “Why stop at wings?” Thorn said. “Perhaps I could have fiery breath that can melt stone and bring the citadel itself tumbling down.”

  The manticore laughed, the sound a low rumble. “Were the walls made of stone, it would surely be that simple. But how long must we play this little game? How long until you ask for the strength of my wings again?”

  “And what will I pay this time?” Thorn said. When she’d first met the creature, she’d thought its price of a story to be a gift; seeing it again, she was beginning to wonder what she had given up.

  “You’ll only know if you ask.”

  “Then tell me, my dear, old friend: Will you carry me through the air and to my destination?”

  The manticore nodded. “That I shall. You may even bring your companion, if he has the courage to look me in the eye.”

  “And the price?” Thorn said.

  “I asked no price,” the beast replied. “Not this time. I will have what I seek soon enough.”

  Thorn didn’t like the sound of that, but the offer of a swift flight across haunted woods was difficult to resist. “You can come out now, Drix.”

  The tinker slowly crept out of his hole. When the manticore made no hostile move, he carefully lifted the black cloth from the board and folded it up.

  “So gliding over the walls,” Thorn said. “That’s what you’d suggest if I had wings?”

  The manticore scratched out a rough map in the soil, traces of blood rubbing off on the grass. “I do not know what it is you seek within,” it said. “There is a courtyard, yes. And many towers, each one dedicated to a different terror.”

  “And since you know so much about it, I imagine you’d k
now if it’s filled with guards, people watching the skies, and such.”

  “Yes,” it said. “And of course it is. They are preparing for battle.”

  Thorn looked to Drix. “Bad enough that we’re likely to be seen going in. We haven’t even discussed what happens once we get there. This is a fortress girded for war. How do we find the stones once we’re inside?”

  Drix seemed honestly surprised. “You can’t feel them?”

  “No. How would I?”

  Drix put a hand over his crystal heart. “In here. I can feel them. Far, yes, but stronger than before. I thought…” He looked at the shard in her neck. “I thought you could feel them too.”

  “No,” Thorn said. “All right. So we can find the stones. All we need is a plan to survive after we fly over the walls and into certain doom.”

  “Not merely doom,” the manticore said. “Dream. The fortress you seek exists in two worlds. Your enemies have become living nightmares. When we cross that wall, we leave the reality you know behind.”

  “Good, good,” Thorn said. “Because it was starting to sound a little too easy.” She rubbed her hand against her forehead, feeling the smooth leather against her skin. She stopped and rubbed a finger across her palm.

  “What is it?” Drix said.

  “An idea,” she replied.

  Thorn could feel the wind in her hair and hear the steady beat of the manticore’s wings, but all things considered, it was far more pleasant than the last time she’d flown with the beast.

  “So this is it,” she said to Drix. “Heading into the fortress of nightmares. You’re sure that you’re ready for this?”

  “It may seem strange,” he said, “but I think I am.”

  They were sitting in the portable hole. Outside, the manticore was carrying the board in its mouth. Inside, Drix was testing the string on his little crossbow. Satisfied, he produced four small bolts. Instead of metal, the heads were dragonshards; he’d used the shards he’d taken from the Pit.

  “Just be careful,” she said, sorting through her tools. “Try to be quiet. Hopefully our friend will prove a sufficient distraction. You focus on finding the stones. If there’s fighting to be done, leave it to me.”

  “Of course,” Drix told her. He handed her the wand she’d taken from the Orien guard. “I did the best I could; I think you’ll get one more use from it.”

  The manticore snarled, the deep growl shaking their sanctuary.

  “That’s our signal,” Thorn said, taking the wand and tucking it into her belt. “Get ready.”

  A moment later, a bloodcurdling howl filled the air. Thorn had never heard its like; there was a touch of the wolf to it, but if it was a wolf, the life was being torn from it slowly. It was a cry of pain and a warning of pain to come. A flash of brilliant light illuminated the hole, and they caught a glimpse of a tall, spindly tower as the manticore banked sharply. Thorn saw it for only a moment, silhouetted against one of the moons, but the image was fixed in her mind. It was no turret of stone, no crenellated rampart. It was tall and curving, and she knew it was a tower only because of the flickering lights of the windows scattered across it. Otherwise, she would have guessed that it was the curved talon of a fierce beast, reaching up for the sky.

  The howl came again. And they were falling. They could see the sky spinning through the opening of the portable hole, walls and moons and lights whirling around.

  “Face me, Children of the Fading Dream!” The voice of the manticore was louder than thunder, surely shaking the walls of the fortress. “LOOK WITHIN MY SOUL, IF YOU DARE TO SEEK MY FEARS!”

  The whirling landscape was suddenly still.

  “Now!” Thorn said. They grabbed the edges of the hole and pulled, as Drix had shown her, widening the opening. Another moment and she was outside. The manticore had dropped them on a narrow ledge; there was a window just next to her.

  “Good thing we didn’t end up with the hole pressed up against the wall,” Drix said, looking out.

  Thorn froze for a moment as she took in the scene around her. The towers rising up were indeed like talons; she could think only of the claws of a dragon buried in the soil, reaching up to tear out the stars. Down below she saw a wide wall, and even from that height, she could see that it was made of bones-human, dragon, and every creature she could imagine.

  The moat that lies beyond is filled with the tears of the fallen, extracted in the moment before they die.

  The thought came to her mind without warning. The manticore had told her that the fortress stood in dreams, and she understood, for that’s what that feeling was-the crystal clarity that sometimes came in a dream, when she remembered a life that she’d never lived.

  The manticore was swooping around another tower, and there was something pursuing it, a creature shrouded in smoke. As she looked, the shadow began to gain substance. It howled again and the howl shifted, becoming more familiar.

  She forced her eyes away. All things in this place thrive on fear, the manticore had told them. Do not let them reach into your thoughts.

  “Don’t look,” she told Drix. She took his hand, and they slipped inside the tower.

  CHAPTER TWENTY — ONE

  Taer Lian Doresh B arrakas 25, 999 YK

  The floor was slick with blood, and the scent of it filied Thorn’s sensitive nose, drowning out all other sensations. It was worse than the slaughterhouses of Droaam. Yet she somehow knew that the blood had yet to be spilled, that it was the carnage from murders only dreamt of, as of yet uncommitted.

  It didn’t help with the smell.

  She drew Steel, tracing a cross on his hilt.

  The energies in this place are almost as strong as those of the Mournland itself, he told her. No specific wards that I can sense. As for divination… I feel as if the tower itself is watching you. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Illusion, conjuration… I’m not sure anything is real.

  The bloody hallway descended in a tight spiral turret; Thorn had to fight to keep her footing on the slick stone. At last the floor leveled out, a dim, flickering light flowing through a large archway. The only sound Thorn heard was a low and steady rustling, the sound of paper blown in the wind. She glanced at Drix, tapping the stone in her neck then gesturing at the chamber, a questioning look on her face. The tinker’s crystal heart pulsed with a flash of light and he nodded.

  Thorn raised a hand, palm out, hoping Drix would understand the order to wait. She paused at the entrance, studying the chamber ahead. It was a library, and a very disorganized one at that. There were no shelves; it was a collection of leather-bound journals and sheets of loose parchment with the occasional odd item thrown in. Strange symbols glittered on one of the many facets of a carved dragonshard. A giant’s notebook was leaning up against a wall, the volume only slightly shorter than Thorn herself. Some of the loose pages were yellowed and cracking with age; others were fresh, with words written in ink and blood still drying upon them. Crumbling cold-fire torches were fixed to the walls, and their flickering light cast long shadows across the unsteady towers of literature.

  The eladrin soldier struck the moment she stepped into the room, thrusting with a short, curved blade. Whether it was Sarmondelaryx’s draconian senses or natural paranoia working to her advantage, Thorn threw herself out of the way just in time, sending a tower of journals tumbling to the floor as she staggered into it. She wasn’t quite fast enough to evade all harm, and the spear traced a narrow gash across her ribs.

  Her enemy was still an indistinct figure wrapped in a black cloak, but Thorn flung Steel before she even rose to her feet. Steel tore through cloth without touching flesh.

  The soldier charged. She was an eladrin, wearing the armor Thorn had seen in her dream of the ancient battle with the giants. Her face was smooth and lovely, and her eyes were empty pits. She held a sword in each hand, and both flashed toward Thorn.

  Thorn swept aside the first blow with a mithral bracer, but as she tried to catch the other blade, she found
herself staring into the woman’s hollow gaze, and for a moment, she felt lost in that emptiness. Then the point of a steel blade stuck bone, the pain breaking the spell. In an uncharacteristic moment of panic, Thorn just pushed the woman away from her. The dragon’s strength wasn’t with her, though, and while the eladrin stumbled back, it gave her room to ready both her blades. Thorn took a step back, trying to gather her thoughts; instead she slipped on a loose scrap of paper and fell into the pile of books. The soldier raised her blades, leaping forward-

  There was a flash of light, and a warm feeling flowed over her. Even the pain of her wound faded, though a dull ache remained. Where the soldier had been, there was only a piece of a broken blade and a crossbow bolt, shattered against the ground.

  “It worked!” Drix sounded so happy, so pleased with himself, that Thorn almost forgot her pain. He was holding his tiny crossbow in both hands, looking down at it with an expression of absolute glee.

  “What was that?” she said.

  “When we were on our way here, I tried to fill the shards with energy from this stone in my heart,” he said. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure what it would do. But I always knew this little one would save me some day.”

  “And I’m certainly glad it did,” Thorn said, calling Steel back to her hand.

  “She,” Drix said. “She’s a crossbow, you know.”

  “Of course she is,” Thorn said. She was still shaken by the fight. It was troubling enough that the woman had surprised her… How had Thorn missed that first blow? She traced a cross on Steel’s hilt.

  There’s nothing I can tell you, Steel said. There’s too much ambient magical energy. I’m afraid you’re on your own.

  Drix suddenly paused, looking up from his crossbow. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

  Thorn froze. “What?”

  “Are there insects in here?”

  Thorn saw it before he did. “No,” she said. “Words.”

  Letters were crawling between the pages of the unfinished books, ideas searching for homes.